


L'Incubo

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [25]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Comfort, F/M, Fear, Fluff, Lullabies, Nightmares, Nosebleed, Protective Loki (Marvel), Reader-Insert, Sleepiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23745262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: You get up in the middle of the night. Loki wakes to an empty bed and has to come looking for you.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 9
Kudos: 251





	L'Incubo

It wasn’t fun to wake up face-first in a pool of blood.

Your pillow was soaked. Still half asleep, you blinked groggily and traced the uneven edges of the stain on your pillowcase. It was definitely blood. For a moment, you were absolutely bewildered, until you touched your face. Then you groaned.

When you were a kid, you’d gotten nosebleeds at the drop of a hat. It wasn’t uncommon for you to wake up in the middle of the night to a face and sheets smeared with blood. When you got this place on your own, you’d gotten a humidifier to keep things comfortable, but...since Loki had arrived, you hadn’t wanted to mess with it too much. You looked at him over your shoulder. He was still asleep, and his arm was still slung protectively across your midsection. Moving carefully, you slid out of his grasp and tucked the blankets back around him. You dropped your pillow to the floor. Imagine if he reached out for you in his sleep and ended up trying to hold that bloody mess. 

You pinched your nose shut as you stood up and fumbled through the darkness towards the bathroom, and then winced when you turned on the light to inspect the damage. Like always, your face was covered with blood, but you forced your eyes away from the mirror and ducked your head forward. The important thing right now was getting the bleeding to stop. Then you could clean up. _Then_ you could mentally berate yourself for not keeping the humidifier running.

You grabbed a few tissues from the box on the back of the toilet and did your best to sort of pack your nose, the way you could remember doctors doing when you were a kid. This was usually the worst part of each ordeal—the waiting. When you were little, you would sometimes slip into panic attacks, absolutely certain that the blood would never stop and you would die. Your stomach clenched a little, but you pushed that thought aside with a deep breath. You were fine. This hadn’t happened in a long time, but you knew the drill. It was no big deal.

Still, you sat down on the edge of the tub rather than remain standing on wobbly knees. You were sleepy, that was all. You really wanted to pull the tissues away so you could see if you were still bleeding, but that was a dumb idea. It was still too soon. You were sure to make it start up again if you did that now.

You combed the fingers of one hand through your hair and tried to make a plan. How would you evaluate the mess in the bedroom? If you turned on the light, you ran the risk of waking Loki. The flashlight on your phone, maybe? You looked down at the shirt you’d been sleeping in. There wasn’t much blood on it—maybe a drop or two from when you were getting up, but not enough to make you think you’d need to change all the sheets. If you were really lucky, maybe you could take care of everything before Loki woke up, so you wouldn’t have to explain it to him.

With a sigh, you stood up and grabbed a cloth from one of the drawers under your sink. You wet it and then set about cleaning the blood off of your face. Some part of you kind of wanted to take a shower, in case there was anything in your hair, but that wasn’t going to happen. That would definitely wake Loki. Speaking of… You froze when you heard movement from the bedroom. He groaned. You found that he often made sounds like that in his sleep. He had a lot of nightmares, and those low sounds of terror broke your heart, but he wouldn’t talk to you about what haunted him. Your heart sank a bit when you heard him draw in a deep breath. He was awake, and he was trying to soothe himself after a nightmare.

He said your name normally at first, not calling out for you so much as...perhaps just wondering where you were? Before you could draw in a breath to answer him, he repeated your name, this time louder and lower. It sounded a lot like the groans he made in his sleep. It sounded like horror.

You dropped the cloth on the sink and started back down the hall to the bedroom, but Loki had already more or less thrown himself into the hall to look for you. The bathroom light drew his attention and he squinted at you. 

“There’s blood.” He looked pale as he approached you. He reached out to touch you but then pulled his hand away again. You sighed and stepped back into the bathroom to pick the cloth back up again. He followed, a shadow looming in the bathroom door frame.

“I know. I’m sorry. Sometimes I get nosebleeds at night. I was going to check out the damage in the bedroom once I got things under control out here.” You rinsed the cloth under the tap and made a face when the water turned pinkish. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“There was blood.” Maybe he wasn’t entirely awake right now. It was hard to blame him. He touched your shoulder, ran his fingers down the length of your arm. “He didn’t hurt you?”

His nightmare. You draped the cloth over the tap and dried your hands before turning to fold his hand in your own. “You were having a nightmare, love. No one hurt me. No one _can_ hurt me. We’re both safe here.” You brought his hand up to your lips so you could kiss his knuckles. Some small, silly part of you was a little bit happy to hear that he dreamed about you, though of course mostly you fucking hated that they were bad dreams. 

He sighed heavily and reached out to pull you closer. Sometimes, after a nightmare, his hands would be trembling when you held him, but tonight he was steady. Maybe that was a good thing? You held him tightly and pressed your face against his chest. 

“I dreamed that he killed you.” He spoke into the top of your head. “He made me watch. I couldn’t move.” You held him tighter. You wanted to interrupt him, tell him that it was just a dream and that you were right here, but it didn’t feel right. Not right now. “And when he dropped you to the ground, I tore him apart.” He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “I’ve never been able to do that in a dream before. It felt good. But you were still gone.”

“I’m right here.” Of course you knew that dreams couldn’t really be reasoned with. If you could do anything to drive those images out of his mind, you’d do it, no questions asked. “The ‘he’ in that dream… Is it always the same...person? The same bad guy, I mean? He’s the one who hurt you, right?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. Really, you didn’t expect him to. There was a lot in his past that you didn’t know, and a lot that you’d probably never know. That was understandable. Between what you’d heard from others in the Tower and what you heard from Loki in his sleep, you knew that something horrific had happened to him, something he was still trying to heal from. You hugged him a little tighter, trying to tell him with your body all the things you couldn’t say with words. He pressed his hand against the back of your head, holding you closer.

“Yes,” he finally said in a voice that sounded long out of use. “He’s the one who hurt me.” You felt him press a kiss to the top of your head. “And you’re the one who’ll save me.” That last part, he all but whispered. Somehow, you still understood him perfectly. You nodded fiercely against him and couldn’t fight the sob that wracked through you from the sheer force of your emotions. Your arms were trembling from how tightly you were holding him, but you couldn’t let him go.

“I’ve got you, Loki.”


End file.
